


Single Serving Friends

by Nehszriah



Series: The Teacher, the Media Man, and the President of the United States [2]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005), The Thick of It (TV)
Genre: Danny only kinda makes an appearance, F/M, Gen, Prompt Fic, a chance meeting for an interesting pair, flight-mates Clara and Malcolm, mostly friendship fic, the Pinkwald is there anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-13
Updated: 2015-10-13
Packaged: 2018-04-26 07:14:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4995181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nehszriah/pseuds/Nehszriah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the last flight was a disaster, Clara hopes that she gets this next plane ride all to herself. Instead she gets seated next to a man with a Scottish accent and a rather cheerful disposition.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Single Serving Friends

**Author's Note:**

> So sometimes over on tumblr I open up prompts for people to go and send me stuff. This past weekend I got this, as well as another prompt, and they seemed to just slide into place for an existing Malcolm/Clara AU I've had going.
> 
> The prompt this time was: "So, Malcolm and Clara meet each other in an airplane, 'Fight Club' like, single-serving friends, and something's gonna happen between those two, and you're the only person I can imagine writing that stuff." Very flattering, yes, so I made sure to deliver.

Clara saw where she was sitting and breathed a sigh of relief. Both her seat and the one next to it were empty on the packed plane—she was going to spend the flight from Amsterdam to London in peace and quiet. The woman who was her travel partner the flight over was young, obnoxious, and only heading there for whatever relaxed laws were there and not in the UK. That was all Amsterdam seemed to be to that sort: loose sex and drugs and whatever else their debauched minds came up with. Heaven forbid they meet someone outside of the Red Light District, a Moroccan-born Muslimah or a country farmer in the city on business. She had gone for more conventional things: the culture, the sights, the cheeses, the religious-made beer, making it an enjoyable holiday, all things considered. Sitting down, she settled in with the latest book she was going to make her students read ( _Jane Eyre_ , a perennial favorite), and begun to relax.

Just as the pilot announced all the passengers were aboard and takeoff would be soon, a stewardess appeared and a man sat down in the empty seat next to Clara. She tried to keep her eyes trained to her book, hoping that would deter him and keep the flight peaceful. Instead he held out his hand, just to the right of her own.

“Malcolm,” he said, introducing himself with a rather Glaswegian burr to his voice.

“Clara,” she replied. Being polite, she shook his hand and looked him in the eyes—shockingly watery-blue against his brown-grey fleece pullover and equally-brown-grey hair. It was the sort of eye color that changed against the light, she imagined. “Business or pleasure?”

“Bit of both,” he chuckled. “Media; had to take care of a couple things over here with some international people, but I got a rare day by myself out of it. You?”

“Taking advantage of a school holiday to get in one of my own,” she said. “I’m a teacher; Literature.” She held up her book for emphasis, just in case he thought she was still in university.

“Ah, making sure the next generation knows the good shit, not just _Hollyoaks_ and _Strictly_ ,” he nodded. “That’s good; I can respect that… better than I can say for some.”

“Working in media, I’d guess you run into the wrong sort all the time.”

“All day, every day, it seems like, and before you ask: yeah, it gets tiring.” He leaned back against his seat and shifted his shoulders, getting comfortable. “Wow—this actually isn’t that bad for one of these flying sardine tins.”

“Oh really?” she giggled. The plane began to move as they undocked from the terminal and slowly prepped for the tarmac.

“I was in one a while ago—Heathrow to Washington D.C.—and _business class_ was so fucking cramped you couldn’t move your leg without kicking three other blokes.”

“Now that sounds a little bit like an exaggeration.”

“Maybe, but I got you t’laugh.” He gave her a smile, kind and reassuring, as they began to pick up speed. “Got to make sure my flight-mate gets back home to whomever she left at home sane and well-attended. Airplane hospitality isn’t what it used to be.”

“His name is Danny and we work together—he had a department meeting during the holiday…”

“…hence why I’m sitting in this seat and not him,” he finished. “He must be a fine lad, a trusting lad, to let you go off internationally on your own.”

“He is; I’m lucky,” she replied. Clara put her book down on her lap, open to the page she was on. For being someone he just met, and on a plane no less, this Malcolm character seemed rather pleasant to be around. “How about you? Anyone waiting at the terminal for you to come home?”

“My assistant, Sam,” he shrugged. “I’m mid-divorce, fairly nasty, but the ring’s still on until it’s final since I’m not the one ending it. If you love Danny, truly love him, put a ring on him, but even if you do and things go sour on your end and not his for whatever reason, at least do him the courtesy of being upfront about it.”

“Oh, I’m sorry…”

“Don’t be. I know it’s a common courtesy, but I’m not out for anyone’s pity. If you want to pity someone, then pity the sad sack of skin that decided to go after my wife. She’s far from being the woman I fell in love with now and he’s going to have one hell of a time on his hands.”

“For this being a nasty business you’re taking it rather well,” she said. Clara opened her mouth to say more, but the cabin began to violently rock. She gripped the armrests instinctively, breathing in and out as slowly as her panic would allow her. The pilot said something over the intercom, what precisely she couldn’t tell, and she closed her eyes, counting backwards from fifty. By the time she was on twenty-two, she felt a large hand cautiously pick up hers and she snapped to attention.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Malcolm said. The cabin had stopped shaking and everyone around them was calm. “It was just a bit of turbulence. You don’t fly much, do you?”

“Not really,” she admitted, gently taking back her hand. The flight out she had been fine, though the woman sitting next to her had woken up due to the turbulence and that had kicked off the very unpleasant flight, but Danny… had Danny been there, their fingers would be entwined and she would have been easily comforted the entire time. The way Malcolm was looking at her, it did seem like he was genuine about wanting to take care of her until he could pass her into her boyfriend’s arms. Maybe it was a sense of duty? Possibly needing to feel that he was still capable of being courteous to a woman, despite the fact he was going through the process of severing ties with the one he thought he could spend the rest of his life with? She didn’t know, nor was the flight long enough for her to care too much. Clara picked her book up off the floor and tried to find where it was she left off.

“Here,” Malcolm said. He was holding out a business card, which she stared at, hesitant to take. “To save your page.”

“Oh, thank you,” Clara replied. She took it and shoved the little piece of cardstock between the pages.

It wasn’t until well after the flight, once she got back to her flat and was basking in the afterglow of welcome-home-sex, did she bother to read the name that was on the card as it fluttered down onto her mattress, book opened to catch up on the reading she had planned on doing on the plane but never got around to. The man she had sat next to was far too interesting to ignore, she had decided, and she picked up the card, squinting in the light to see who it was that left her side saying that if she or Danny were ever in trouble, he’d be glad to help.

‘ _Malcolm Tucker: Director of Communications; Number 10, Downing Street_ ’

Clara had made a plane-mate out of a top government official.

She tried not to tense, else risk waking up the boyfriend currently curled around her. Placing the card back in the book, she closed it and stretched to set it on the nightstand. Danny was going to love learning about this little development in the morning.


End file.
